Melissa McCarthy to Star in Adaptation of Lee Israel’s Memoir Can You Ever Forgive Me? Which, Since It’s Melissa McCarthy, Yeah, Of Course

You don’t cast Melissa McCarthy in a biopic if you don’t want us to find a convicted literary thief and forger adorable. It’s just common sense. According to Variety, the Ghostbusters actress joins The Diary of a Teenage Girl director Marielle Heller for Fox Searchlight’s comedy biopic of writer Lee Israel. After Israel’s freelance career writing celebrity profiles of greats like Tallulah Bankhead, Katharine Hepburn, and Estée Lauder fizzled out, she spent the early ’90s fabricating letters from dead writers and actors, eventually stealing authentic correspondence and replacing them with forgeries. Israel published her memoir, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, in 2008 prior to her death in 2014, and now Melissa McCarthy is playing her in a film, so really, when you think about it, wasn't it all worth it?

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